CCM airs priorities to improve Conn. communities' financial recovery

Mary E. O'Leary, Register Topics Editor

Published 12:00 am, Tuesday, January 4, 2011

HARTFORD -- The Connecticut Conference of Municipalities views the state's current fiscal crisis as an opportunity for fundamental changes that will reduce mandates on communities, provide more revenue options for them and looks to more incentives for regional solutions.

Kevin Maloney, spokesman for CCM, said the group wanted to make its needs clear before the new administration of Gov.-elect Dan Malloy takes office Wednesday and it puts together its first budget by mid-February.

Beyond filling the $271 million hole in the Educational Cost Sharing grant when federal assistance dries up next year, CCM is hopeful towns will be allowed to levy local-option taxes, make permanent the present rates of the municipal real estate conveyance tax and repeal or defer, during this economic downturn, many unfunded or underfunded mandates.

"This represents the best thinking of the mayors and first selectmen on what they need in this time of fiscal crisis," Maloney said.

Beyond that, CCM hopes Barnes and Malloy will be sympathetic to their needs. Barnes was CCM's financial specialist when he worked there, was the finance director for Stamford and most recently for the Bridgeport schools, while Malloy was mayor of Stamford for 14 years.

"They both have walked the walk," Maloney said of the pair and their familiarity with increasing strain on local property taxes.

It's a near certainty the towns will be given some kind of local-option taxes, whether in the form of a hotel tax, meals tax or other model, but whether the state can continue to fund the total $2.9 billion town aid package is problematic.

"Property taxes continue to rise in order to fund an increasingly unfair burden of K-12 public education costs. The center cities and first-ring suburbs are regional hubs of employment, culture, health care and social services, but are among the poorest in the nation. CCM's 2011 priorities present a clear path for the state to work together with municipalities to reposition Connecticut for success," said Jim Finley, executive director of CCM.

Municipalities also want expedited approvals of economic development projects, a constitutional amendment or law prohibiting passage of unfunded mandates without a two-thirds vote of the General Assembly, modification of compulsory binding arbitration and higher thresholds when prevailing wage mandates would kick in.

Maloney said for years a handful of towns wanted the state to eliminate the minimum educational expenditure, but that has changed. "Now, it's the consensus of the towns," he said. CCM wants Councils of Government empowered to deliver services on a regional basis, negotiate multi-municipal master contracts with town workers and school teachers and make land use decisions on "regionally significant projects."

For the future, when Connecticut's finances stabilize, the lobbying group asked that the state share sales tax growth on a regional basis, identify a revenue stream to take over responsibility for special education and dedicate any increase in the state's share of Indian gaming revenue to fully fund PILOT (payments in lieu of taxes.)

PILOT was adopted to help towns saddled with large amounts of state-mandated tax-exempt property; it has been consistently underfunded.